We all know that Apple’s iMac line is on the cusp of being updated, possibly with a new, innovative multitouch mouse to replace Apple’s old standard Mighty Mouse pack-in. But what about their powerhouse desktop, the face melting Mac Pro? The tower desktop aimed at professionals and semi-professionals alike is usually updated along with the iMac, and is also due for a refresh. What can we expect?

According to Apple rumor site Hardmac’s source, the new Mac Pro is due to arrive sometime in late 2009 or early 2010. The new Mac Pro will feature a brand new Xeon CPU from Intel, which it will offer exclusively for a short period terminating at the second quarter of 2009.

The CPU’s codename is Gulftown, and it’s a monster: it boasts six full processing cores, beating the current single core total by two. And considering the fact that the current high-end Mac Pro has two CPUs, that means that the new Mac Pros will have 12 cores of processing power available to users.

Other specs of the new Gulftown CPU are rumored to be 12MB of shared cache. The manufacturing process is 32 nanometers, and is also a cooler chip, featuring slightly lower power consumption than the current generation Xeon.

Apparently, these new Mac Pros will not be branded as Xeons, but instead feature the newly favored Core i9 branding. As for other specs, the new Mac Pro will sport capacity up to a theoretical 128GB of RAM. HardMac speculates that this power means that the new Mac Pros could potentially power real-time rendering in Final Cut Studio 3.0. That’s enough to make any professional video editor swoon.